


Corps a Corps

by runawaykael (garnetmantle)



Category: Batman (Comics), Smallville
Genre: Early Work, Fencing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-31
Updated: 2001-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:24:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnetmantle/pseuds/runawaykael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bruce realizes Lex may have the potential to become a fruit one day after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corps a Corps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tieleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/gifts).



He lowered his epee and picked up a towel, scrubbing sweat from his face and focusing on the dark paneling of the wall until his breathing settled into the normal rhythm of exertion again. Frustration wouldn’t help in any area at all, but his current opponent had always been one of the most frustrating people he had ever met. What kind of arrogance was it in both of them, anyway, that the absence of masks had been a given?

"Lex... do you remember, my father was a doctor? A physician."

He'd heard that, but the insanity of it had left it as no more than a passing rumor in his memory. The Waynes weren't in the same league as the Luthors, but still in a class that should've relegated any education that wasn't applicable to business to hobby status. "Was he?"

"Yes. A practicing - well, it would be called a general practitioner, now. A family doctor. He worked in a free clinic, with a friend of his from medical school. She still runs it."

"With your funding?" _She._ Possible explanation there. But, no. Even wild expressions of devotion wouldn't take a man with the means of Wayne the elder that far.

"Of course. Dr. Thompkins also does consultation work for the Wayne Foundation." Bruce threw down his own towel and turned back to him, but didn't raise the epee. "But those business arrangements are simple and straightforward."

"And so not the reason you mentioned it?" Because despite what Lionel had warned about showing too much of his thinking to those who might one day be rivals, he'd learned a lot from late night conversations with Bruce. The man's acuity was only surpassed by his ability to think in algorithms where other people thought in linear equations. That much had been shown, at the price of Lex extending the same transparency. Bruce didn't lecture even as a school boy, and to have a conversation with him you had to make one.

Lex didn't think he flattered himself that he'd managed to show little of his real motivations in their analyses of application. At least, as little as Bruce had.

He wondered if he flattered himself that he could see enough of Bruce's reactions to judge that.

He raised his epee, and Bruce's body twitched as if to assume an on guard posture, then stilled. "I'm bored with this. Sabre?"

He was turned and into the cabinets before Lex could agree. Of course Bruce was bored with it. He'd been engaging with such caution there was no _sentiment de fer_ , reducing their exchanges to textbook thrust and parry. That kind of personal wariness in the salle wasn't something Lex had ever subscribed to. He was beginning to wonder if he should've. Was it arrogance to believe no one who was at his level in fencing would have the breadth of mind to read anything from him he didn't intend to show?

Lex frowned at his guest’s back. Bruce had something to tell him. Something he thought Lex needed to hear, but he wouldn't just offer it. Lex would have to ask. It wasn't even tactical, not in the traditional sense. The man had too much insight, and he'd force you to ask and be damned before he told you something you might not want to hear. But nothing he'd ever said in this way hadn't been worth the effort.

"You mentioned your father."

"Yes. Probably like your father, he had me preparing for boarding school by the time I could talk."

Lionel's preparation, other than the tutors, could be condensed into, 'learning as much of you can of those who will one day be your rivals is always beneficial, but give away as little of yourself as you can manage.' His father was the only one who'd ever considered him transparent. "Yes."

"I learned other things, from his journals. Things he wrote down, to tell me when I was old enough to understand. Things to keep in mind, despite the people I would come to know. One thing he said, I don't think it ever applied in school. I hadn't thought about it in years, until I got here."

"Well, Smallville's known for its excellence in philosophy-"

"Applied philosophy, Lex. Just because they don't think about it in words doesn't mean it doesn't govern them."

"Existential observations? I thought I was the one who'd been in Smallville too long. You're not going to start on about the fruit versus the flowers, are you?" Also, what the _hell_? Bruce never talked about his deceased parents; even a personal mention was rare. Bruce was always weird, alternating between dilettante obtuseness and cutting astuteness, but not this kind of weird.

"No."

He actually chuckled as he flung a sabre out to Lex. Flung it. Lex caught it smoothly and raised a nonchalantly quizzical eyebrow, managing not to look unnerved.

"No," Bruce said again, "But maybe along the same lines. Something about how in the business world, you don't trust anything until you're given proof, and even then you test it constantly to learn the limits - when and how and under what circumstances the thing will fail you. So you can be prepared."

"Sound theory." Also incredibly basic, and Bruce was throwing him a mask.

He donned his own and walked back to the center of the salle. Lex didn't let himself hesitate in assuming the opposite position.

"Even applied to people, still sound."

"Of course." Lex was getting irritated, bored, and fell into a guard posture, then made the slightest feint of a thrust.

Bruce didn't move. "But there are some people who offer all their trust first. Each facet of it has to be betrayed before it's withdrawn. You get them all at once, instead of one piece at a time. And all you have to do to keep them is be worthy of it."

"Thus giving them the right to judge your actions and feel betrayed, when you never did anything to invite that trust to begin with? Nothing worse than a self-righteous enemy with delusions of former intimacy."

"Well put. When you earn that careful, limited trust, you both know what it's based on and how far it goes. One area of cooperation doesn't give either party a right to expect special consideration, or to exact guilt or obligation when it isn't given."

Lex gave a little flourish, impatient for Bruce to engage. "A well-defined working relationship."

"Except when it isn't a working relationship. Or a delusion."

Lex almost dropped the sword. He recovered quickly. "Why Bruce, I never knew you cared..."

He could hear the amusement beneath the steel screen. "I don't, and you know it. Neither do you. I'm not here to ask you to stop the buyout on the Dover properties."

"That's good." Lex hesitated after the firm, no-nonsense words, then admitted, "Since I have no idea which properties you're referring to, or that there's a buyout in progress."

"Not following things as closely as you have been?"

"My focus has narrowed."

"Expanded. From my observation."

"Yes, these prosaic observations on farm community life."

"What happens when there's no desire to judge?"

"What?"

"When the trust is given not to presuppose failure and penalties for that failure, but out of a desire to have it proven? Because the person extending it wants you to be worth the trust."

"Presupposes their right to judge that 'worth' and that you have any desire whatsoever to live up to their needs."

"True. Of course, if we weren't talking about professional relationships-"

"Everything is professional, Bruce. And don't pretend that's some revelation about my psyche just because you're in philosophical mode, here - you know it as well as I do." Bruce still stood with his blade tipped to the floor, and Lex finally straightened in annoyance. "Are we going to-"

"Can I trust you, Lex?"

"As far as you trust anyone." Which didn't mean anything, because Bruce didn't trust anyone. At all. He'd do Lionel proud.

And Bruce _snorted_. What the _hell_? Had someone dropped a meteorite in the water supply again?

Then his voice came, absolutely devoid of humor. Hard and cold and without threat in the most terrifying way and hell, Lionel could take a _lesson_ here. The hairs he didn't have tried to rise all down his neck. _Erector pili._ Little muscles that would've made his hair stand on end, rippling into chill bumps across his back.

"I'm adopting a child, Lex. A young boy. You aren't unaware of the unsubstantiated link common opinion draws between certain sexual imperatives and the potential for pederasty."

 _Oh._ They hadn't talked business, on some of those late nights. It had never gone beyond heat and friction and rumpled clothes, but-

Another hairless shiver traced over Lex, all the way down his arms. Bruce was weird, but not that kind of weird. Finding heat in the play of strength in muscled bodies - no. 'Common opinion' be damned, the kind of man who wanted boys liked his women smooth and small, and fragile enough that they didn't outlive their son's childhood.

"Jesus Christ, Bruce, I wouldn't-" He would, though, and Bruce knew it. "What would I gain?"

Not that Bruce had any reason to think that _Lex_ held an opinion different from the 'common.'

"Your father's done worse, for less."

"You think my father would care about prep school frottage? It's practically tradition." It was hard to attain the proper casual contempt with his face covered. He reached an arm up to remove the mask, but Bruce raised his sword arm and reflexes brought Lex's blade up in defense.

"In British public schools. In the U.S., people take a narrower view."

"I never mentioned you."

"See that you don't."

He should've made a mocking comment about threats and how this revelation of a weak area was an amateur's error in tactics, but they were engaged in such a flurry suddenly that there wasn't breath for it, and after a few minutes the visceral drive for verbal parry faded. Feint of stop-hit, met by parry, riposte, counter-parry and second riposte. It had been too long since he'd fenced with anyone at his own level. Holding back was tiresome, but necessary if he wanted to keep any engagement moving long enough to even count as exercise. The only caution he had to display with Bruce was the natural caution of the duel.

Parry, riposte, banderole and neck-cut, passata sotto, redoublement, reprise, Bruce moved with impressive speed and subtlety for a man his size. They disengaged a moment and Lex offered, "Congratulations on your adoption."

"Thank you."

"This boy's got you thinking about trust issues, has he?"

"No." Another thrust, along the high lines. "Your boy has. I was just going to threaten the plant. WayneCorp has a solid reputation with share-owner operations. But Smallville's been good for you, Lex."

"My b-"

Bruce was suddenly much too close to him, the edge of his blade hard against the padding where throat met jaw.

"Touche."

They should've returned to en garde, but they'd barely separated before Bruce came forward again, an angular thrust along the low lines, and Lex parried, circling his blade to gather Bruce's and deflect the attack, fuming.

"Not big on etiquette, Bruce?"

"I prefer to serve the forms only when necessary."

Thrust and parry and the scream of steel as blunt practice surfaces slid against one another and they wound up corps a corps. Unfocused and irritated, Lex didn't slip away on the instant. In the brute test of strength Bruce should've mastered him in the instant after.

Instead he held for a moment, then stepped back into guard. "I've always liked the sabre."

Of course he did. It was all edge.

End


End file.
